Two Little Words
by LZClotho
Summary: Author's Note: Originally written and published to the web in 2004. A bit of a timeline mystery was raised during "Voyager Conspiracy" when Seven and Janeway discuss the first time Janeway heard Seven say "Thank you." This story was my posit of that event, which I placed after the events of "Dark Frontier" (season 5). Rated: M for described same-sex scenes.


Author's Note: Originally written and published to the web in 2004. A bit of a timeline mystery was raised during "Voyager Conspiracy" when Seven and Janeway discuss the first time Janeway heard Seven say "Thank you." This story was my posit of that event, which I placed after the events of "Dark Frontier" (season 5). Rated: M for described same-sex scenes.

**TWO LITTLE WORDS**

by LZClotho

**Captain's Quarters...**

_Sweet dreams? God, Kathryn Janeway, could you have been more inane?_ Voyager's captain plowed through the open doorway of her quarters, mind spinning over two very different needs.

One was quickly attended. "Computer, coffee, Columbian blend two." The replicator obediently materialized the requested vice. She snapped it up, turning abruptly away as her mind swamped with her other quandary.

Despite exhaustion riding her hard after a headlong rush into the heart of Borg space, she forced herself to sit, not on her plush couch, where muscles would relax, but at the small table where a single straight back chair faced the wall.

On the wall, at eye level when one sat at the table, hung two displays. She studied the one, a framed portrait, from mid-chest upward, of her father, Adm. Edward Janeway. She fell into absorbing the shape of his shoulders, the tilt of his chin and the dimple that mirrored her own. By the time her gray-blue eyes found his across the rim of her coffee cup, she could already hear his voice.

"Captain." She could, finally, hear the love evident in the richly baritone voice. It had taken a test flight mission that cruelly ended in his death for the young Commander Janeway to learn that he had always been proud of her, loved her, when she had spent an anxiety-ridden childhood and teen years striving for any sign.

"I… messed up, Dad." She took a deep breath following her admission and sipped her coffee to slow her suddenly speeding heart.

"Report."

Kathryn squared her shoulders. "I ordered a shuttlecraft into Borg space to rescue someone."

There was a benevolence in her father's voice when he replied. "Dangerous, but obviously you had good reason. I've never known you to charge unprepared into anything."

"I did this time," Janeway mused ruefully, admitting now what she had not before. Despite her brave words to her crew, she had never had any plan. Lady Luck, if there was such a being, had protected her. Oddly enough, now as she brought the vision to mind of Seven safely in her alcove regenerating, all she wanted to ask the ephemeral was "Why?" She shook her head. "I had no idea what I was going to do. I took my CMO, my Chief of Security, and even Voyager's best pilot."

"Your best people for a tough job." He sounded approving. She inhaled, catching herself on a choking lump in her throat.

"I went after a Borg drone."

Around the lump, she had to laugh ruefully as she "felt" her father's, in essence her own, surprise. "Who had given every indication she went back to the Collective willingly." She put the cup down firmly, wincing as the warm liquid splashed over her fingers. "Chakotay said I was crazy. 'Maybe you can't take the Borg out of the Collective.' But I wouldn't – couldn't believe it. Seven was coerced. I knew it." She launched to her feet, pacing as she edged around her anxieties of those memories. "When I had the Queen in front of me. Damn it, Dad, I knew it."

"So you rescued someone who had been kidnapped." Again, she felt the warm tendrils of that approving tone soften the brittle edges. "Never leave a man behind," her father concluded.

She nodded.

"So what's the problem, Katie?"

"I could've gotten everyone killed. I risked them all for one."

"She was important to the ship."

"Seven's gift is Astrogation. And a keen mind. She… keeps me on the level." _That was certainly true_, Kathryn thought, recalling Seven's blunt questions leading her so often to cement her decisions before acting on them, reasoning them through thoroughly. Because of Seven, Kathryn Janeway had a better sense of who she was, what ideals she wanted, no, needed to uphold, to get them all… to get herself through this… being lost.

"Sounds important to you," Edward commented.

Kathryn inhaled. "She's one of the things I'm most proud of out here, Dad. She's young, curious. She came aboard when the Collective assigned her to be the liaison during negotiations. We puzzle her so much, though she's Human by birth. We gave that back to her. I… didn't want to let the Borg just snuff that person under there out again."

"Sounds like she means a lot to you."

"Too much." Janeway exhaled.

"Kathryn," her father's voice felt like it was warm, right against her ears. "You can never love someone too much."

_Fwee-weet._

The sound of a request for entry broke the spell between Kathryn and her father's portrait. A glance at the chronometer showed the time just past 0300 hours. _Well, it's back to being captain_.

"Come."

Beyond the opening door, the captain's nocturnal visitor shifted weight from one foot to the other, hands tucked behind a stiff back. Surprise brought Janeway to her feet, clutching the back of her chair. "Seven?"

Blue eyes shifted from the floor to Janeway's face, an easily read expression of uncertainty in them. "My apologies for disturbing your rest period," Seven began.

"It's all right." _Not like I was sleeping anyway_, Kathryn thought, shoving aside a sudden image of finding this woman towering over her as she lay in bed. Her brow furrowed. "What's on your mind?"

"Why did you come after me?"

Having just been examining that question again for herself, Janeway however, could only retreat into replying with a question of her own. "Didn't I already explain that?"

"You indicated that perhaps there was more about humanity that I still needed to learn," Seven answered. "I find that… unsatisfying."

_So do I_, Janeway admitted silently. "Why don't you come in, have a seat. I… Maybe a cup of tea?" She walked away from her dining area and motioned to the small couch.

With a gentle incline of her head, Seven complied. Janeway bit back an indulgent smile as the young woman very primly settled onto the cushions. Her fingers laced demurely across one knee as she precisely aligned her legs together. Tilting her head up, Seven puzzled out another question. "You once told me if I made a choice to return to the Borg that you would accept it."

"Coercion is not a choice, Seven."

"I never indicated I was under duress."

Janeway shook her head. "Not in words."

"Are you telepathic? How can you know what I am thinking when I do not speak?"

Kathryn quirked a smile. "It's called intuition. It comes from knowing someone very well."

"I thought I was doing the right thing," Seven murmured, shaking her head as she examined her thoughts and actions of the recent past. "Removing myself from the ship was the only way to make the Borg leave… Voyager unharmed. I did not think about rescue." Seven's head dropped. "But then you appeared in the Unimatrix, and I…" Penetrating blue seared Janeway. "How can you know me better than I know myself?"

"Are you saying that you honestly did not want to return to us?"

"I wanted… Voyager to be safe." Seven's gaze slid between Janeway's and they held silent together for several breaths.

"I couldn't let you sacrifice yourself for the ship, Seven," Janeway said finally. "That wouldn't have been right."

Seven felt something as she absorbed Janeway's words, the expressions on her face. It was almost as though an undercurrent conversation were taking place. "What then would have been correct?" she asked.

"You should have come to me the first time the Queen contacted you."

"I did not wish to add to your problems," Seven offered, feeling sheepish.

Janeway's expression became pained and the woman's hands reached out, covering the Borg's knee, eliciting a deep connective sensation. Their gazes met once again. "You should let me worry about that."

Guilelessly Seven pressed, "Why?"

"Because I'm the captain. That's my job."

"And if I choose to worry also?"

"What are you worried about, Seven?"

"You."

Janeway's breath rushed away in one abrupt exhale. "Me? Why would you worry about me?"

"The Queen intended the assimilation of all of Voyager. She wished to destroy you. It was within my power to prevent that."

"Don't worry about that," Janeway replied.

"But I find myself… increasingly, worrying about exactly that." Seven shook her head. "Why are you allowed to care for us, but no one is allowed to care for you?"

It was plain as her father's words earlier. Agitation drove Janeway to her feet once again.

"Seven, you should probably get some sleep."

"I do not require sleep. I require an answer to my question. Why would you risk yourself, as I would not wish you to, to rescue me?"

Kathryn couldn't look at her, hugging her arms around herself. "You are more important."

Seven rose, finding her way across the space. "To you?"

Kathryn exploded from the hesitant touch, stepping out then spinning around. "Seven, you are the only thing I've done right since I got us all lost in this godforsaken place." She drew a deep breath. "You… You've come so far. I couldn't let you go…"

"Then do not." Seven watched her own hands, as though foreign to her, lift and come to rest gently against slim shoulders. "When you came for me, I… felt… I've never felt anything like it before," she said in a soft whisper. "We were in the middle of extreme danger, facing probable death - as I would not have permitted the Queen to assimilate you and would have fought." Seven exhaled, her chest filling strongly with a heavy, satisfying sensation. "And yet, I wanted to be nowhere else… as long as you would be with me."

The small body turned in her arms, blue-gray eyes searching her face. "Seven?"

Seven found herself cupping a refined chin. Kathryn's fingers brushed over her own, perhaps a half-hearted attempt to move them away. But Seven persisted in the touch.

"Seven."

Kathryn's whisper sang into Seven's chest, filling it. There seemed only one response to offer. "Kathryn." The unfamiliar name had not completely passed her lips before she found her mouth covered; a gasp of reaction drawn from deep within both bodies.

Seven tightened her hold, awash in so many sensations she felt suddenly, terrifyingly off-balance. Then Janeway's arms were around her waist, supporting her, and their bodies were tightly pressed together, from lips to hips.

Their mouths played together, rejoicing in connection, an unspoken understanding that Janeway finally voiced. Seven thought she had never heard such beautiful words. "Don't ever leave me again, Seven. I need you."

Seven felt the strength of hundreds flow through her body at those words. Her voice roughened with over-spilling joy she responded, "I need you, too." Some part of her cortical memory understood the finest way to express that need. With urgency she returned to kissing the smaller woman and pressed toward the bed she was dimly aware existed in the adjoining room.

Kathryn Janeway had taken very few bedmates over the years, not one to tread lightly with another person's emotions. She had learned how that felt after her first, Cheb Packer, had been a dismal companion outside of the bedroom. _Well_, she blushed, _the backseat of his hovercraft anyway_.

"Seven," she called to the young woman who was already pulling them toward the bedroom.

"Yes, Kathryn?" The change in address made the captain smile. Seven was adapting quite well. Kathryn wished she could say the same.

"I've never done this before," she admitted. "And I want it to be right."

"I believe in your intuition, Kathryn." The choice of word referenced the very human concept Kathryn had tried once to explain to Seven could be as natural as breathing. As natural as what they felt together right now. Seven's hand slid up her arm. "I have no practical experience, so I intend to go with my intuition as well."

Kathryn nodded. "All right then." Still she waited, studying the bed.

"It is time for us to remove our clothing, Kathryn." Seven's hands slid over her shoulders.

With a swallow, hoping she believed in her intuition as much as Seven did, Kathryn opened her arms and let Seven pull the robe from her shoulders.

The young woman's hands then moved over her back, fingertips seeming to map the contours and planes of her muscles. Tingles originated from those points, channeling to her groin.

Kathryn groaned. Seven's arms slipped around her stomach and she backed up aligning against Seven's chest, stomach and pelvis, feeling the fabric of the jumpsuit instead of hot flesh. She turned as Seven stepped back, pulling off her own clothes, leaving them both standing nude in the starlight from the window.

Seven's gaze trailed over her body and the expression went quickly from curiosity to passion, making Kathryn blush. "I want to touch you," Seven whispered. "But I don't know where to start."

Kathryn grinned painfully against her arousal and in her best playful voice she offered, "Anywhere you'd like."

Seven stepped forward. She reached out, following her eyes with her hands, trailing incredible fingertips over the swells of Kathryn's small breasts and pebbling nipples. As though to keep her upright with the sheer magnetism of their contact, Seven's mouth descended over Kathryn's, the kiss drawing her up, even off balance.

Kathryn placed her hands on the full curves of Seven's hips, but was soon stroking in lazy rhythms around the skin. She soothed across the dimples in her lower back and squeezed the swells of her buttocks.

Seven shuddered in her hands. The moment was right. Kathryn trailed her lips from Seven's mouth and whispered in her ear, "You should lie down before you fall down."

As Seven sucked over the pulse point in her throat, Kathryn shuddered. "I believe you require the same," the former Borg observed.

They crawled onto the bedspread together. Kathryn held back, watching Seven roll onto her back, knees upraised, looking up at Kathryn with expectation. She settled her palm over the lean stomach, tracing the faint scars of Seven's removed implants. The muscles jumped and the heat, the plea of "touch me" was back in the young woman's eyes.

"Intuition, right?" she confirmed again with a smile as she dropped her hand a little lower, feeling the heat rising from Seven's center. She lay down alongside Seven, stroking her from shoulder to mound and back again, until the woman began to turn on her side, toward her, knee bent, and the moistened folds of her sex were suddenly under Kathryn's fingertips. Seven groaned then looked startled by her utterance. Kathryn smiled, pleased, and kissed the corner of her lips as she gently explored Seven… to Seven's increasing delight.

Soon the former Borg was unconcerned with any sound that she made, accepting it, as she accepted this experience, with the abandon of wholly enjoying it. Her cries deepened with Kathryn's soft penetration. They became staccato when Kathryn's hot mouth closed over a nipple, tugging. Sensation shot to her groin as though traveling along a wire from one point to the other. Her body began deeply throbbing, every nerve-ending livened by the touch of this woman.

An impending sense of her existence made Seven grab for Kathryn. When the brilliant light exploded behind her eyes, as the pain-pleasure erupted in her stomach, Seven screamed Kathryn's name. Then cried it over and over again.

Gentle lips soothed over her face, her jaw, her lips. Parched, Seven gasped into the contact, eyes shut tightly as she clung only to what was left… Kathryn's body surrounding hers. She tested her throat then spoke through the parched feeling, "I'm not dead."

Kathryn's throaty laughter wrapped around Seven's heart and she came to more awareness. "No, love, you're not dead."

"Good. Because that means I can bring you pleasure now." She rolled over Kathryn's body then, looking down the length, then pulled back, letting the starlight filter over the fair skin. She trailed light fingertips over odd speckling at the top of Kathryn's collarbone. "What is this?"

"Um. Freckles," Kathryn explained. "I grew up in the Indiana sunshine," she explained. "And it's a trait of my family."

"They are beautiful," Seven uttered, as though she was witnessing a star going supernova for the first time. She trailed her lips and teeth over the freckled skin. The sensation soon had Kathryn writhing beneath her, hands clasped around Seven's head.

She moaned, she groaned, she panted. The instant Seven's teeth seized a nipple Kathryn nearly flung herself and Seven off the bed in her surprise at her strong reaction.

"Kathryn?" Seven asked as they pulled themselves together on the bed. "I won't do that again if you don't like it."

"Seven of Nine, don't you dare stop now," Kathryn growled. Seven smiled. Kathryn paused.

"You're joking."

"My... intuition suggested it might be appropriate," Seven replied. "You have denied yourself so long that your body is hypersensitive." She soothed her human fingertips over Kathryn's stomach and then through the soft down covering her sex; Kathryn's hips jumped. Seven left her hand still for a long moment; Kathryn's breathing settled more normally.

Seven began to stoke the fire again, more slowly this time. It seemed more intense than Kathryn had ever experienced before. She lost track of her surroundings, everything but Seven became invisible to her. She cried out Seven's name, needing an anchor. When the first of two slender digits slipped within her folds, she grabbed Seven's other hand, anchoring herself as the explosions erupted in her groin and flowed outward, a conflagration of her entire being. Her whole body tingled in the afterglow by the soft warm body that wrapped around her, tucking her tear-covered face into a broad shoulder, surrounded by a comforting arm.

The starlight dappled across them. Kathryn idly traced the light patterns on their skin. But Seven was so quiet, Kathryn finally looked up to see that she was being studied. "What is it?" she asked.

"If this is why it is desirable to become human," Seven said. "I am sorry that I ever fought you." She leaned back. "Thank you."

Kathryn smiled through tears gathered in her eyes as she realized it was the first time she had ever heard those words from those lips. "Anytime."


End file.
